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Premium - Crackling, Stuttering

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Premium - Crackling, Stuttering

After a day of futzing around with this, I'm at wits end.

 

I'm using a Dell Latitude laptop (work laptop).  It has a fully updated version of Windows 7 64-bit.  Since the last update (I think) I've bee hearing crackling and stuttering in any and all tracks.  It comes and goes, there could be 30 seconds of pristine playback and then a brief crackle/stutter.  

 

After searching the forums and Intertubes, here's the things I've tried:

 

1. Resetting sound device settings, and trying various stample rates and bit-depths

2. Toggling off Hardware Acceleration

3. Toggling off Play all songs at same volume

4.  High quality streaming

5.  Downloading playlists local

 

I went so far as to drop $100 on a USB DAC that bypasses my built in Soundcard in my laptop and docking station, and the crackling still persists.  

 

It does NOT happen in iTunes, Windows Media Player, or in YouTube videos.  Only Spotify.  I'm getting really frustrated, as I'm paying $10 a month for a service that is almost unusable to me for 8-10 hours a day.  

 

It works fine on my iPhone and my several Macs at home without issues.  Only my Windows 7 machine that's causing the problem.  

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Followed this thread, had all the same problems.  Got it to sound a bit better.

 

Windows 10, opened start menu, typed "defender" to open the Windows Defender Security Center.  Wne to "App & Browser control" , Scrolled to bottom and clicked "Exploit protection settings", At top changed to "Program Settings", Hit "Add program to customize", Add program by name "Spotify.exe", and in the window that pops up (Or scroll down to your new addition) Check the box for every item....to Override the system settings, and turn them all to off.  Rebooted spotify, and the crackling is much better for me at least.

How do you change it? It doesn't let me change it, it just stays at 48000. I also have a Lenovo.

Had some diffuse crackling here too. Mostly in Spotify, a little less in winamp, nothing in games. Strange thing it happened in the exakt same spots in songs so for a while I just thought it was bad recordings or added noise but it was not. What solved it for me was actually to update the BIOS of my Asus Z170 motherboard. Had an old version 1904 and the latest as of writing, v.34xx (something) made it go away 100%. Posting here just in case it helps someone. (PC/Windows 10)

Ugh.... After reinstall not once, not twice, but three times the crackling still continued. I have a top tier HD Audio motherboard since I refuse to buy receivers, amps, ets... After throwing a few things blurting out a few curses and my dog staring at me like an A$$hole. Want to know what fixed it? No not the bluetooth fix. No not the Device Manager Fix. But making sure your audio device is plugged into the audio outlet and not the mic outlet.......... Have a good one everyone 

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Scepticer, I tried nearly every method outlined in this thread with no success, until I came across yours.

 

Updating my Gigabyte Z170 motherboard firmware solved the issue.

 

Thank you for posting, I was going mad.

Great news. My system is still working fine thank goodness!

Hey there Stopaftertrack! Thanks for taking the time just to letting me know, feels good to know my post actually helped someone. I too was almost going mad about this. I use the optical output and could really never imagine this kind of crackling could be "produced" by the motherboard and that on a digital output... Longshot but it worked.

Bluetooth was it for me too. Nice find, saved me a ton of stress.

Updated the Spotify app on my Samsung S7 Active. Bluetooth speaker, a Harmon Kardon, was working fine, today had the stuttering, all songs - playing through Alexa (Echo.)  Right now, all working fine with update. Will see if it lasts. So far, so good.

 

anyone having issue with FOCUSRITE interface Scarlett 18i20 (2nd generation) ?

i got stuttering while streaming since one week (every couple of minutes) and it's pretty annoying.

the new driver from march 2018 didn't fix the issue. anyone ?

thx

Spotify is crackling like crazy recently, but almost nothing in Winamp, games or streams. My soundcard is a Soundblaster Z, using Windows 10.

 

Tried reinstalling Spotify, Audio drivers, graphics drivers, network drivers, putting min. CPU state to 100%, listening with headphones instead of speakers, updating BIOS to the latest version, disabling Bluetooth. Nothing helped. Restarting the PC the problem always goes away for a while but then returns, every single time.

Tidal is the solution. Had this crackling sound, startet playing a song in Tidal, and then it worked in Spotify again. But shows up, NEVER had this issue with Tidal. Good job spotify! And thanks for making is SOOOO easy to move playlists from Tidal. wth??Thought about changing to spotify, but NOT happening. Better quality in Tidal and never any crackling sound

Just changed to premium a week ago, and the crackling noise happens on windows and android as well.

I tried headphones and earphones to see if it was a headphone problem and not, it happens with both of them.

Only happens in spotify, and not in youtube or winamp. Very easy to hear from 0:38 on this song. Also worth mentioning, it only happens in a few songs, not all of them, and always at the same moments.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2rgtCOVK2tpfao2VjURn84?si=oHODzrcySGurMTSVIIbXgg

 

Any solution?

Yeah , it started a few weeks ago.  

When I'm starting to listen , it's working well for a few minutes , and after that it starts to crackle. If I pause and launching again , it crackes immediatly. 

BUT, If I pause, wait a minute, and starting again , the crackling appears later. It feels like a bad management of stream buffering. 

If it's not corrected in a few week , i 'll take a look elsewhere...

 

i had spotifi for half a year, (premium) recently started sound cracking / shuttering, only in windows app, i tried everithing, creative x-fi titanium..., well, if they dont fix it, i will put my money elsewhere ... tired of this s....

I have the Focusrite 2i2, and have the stuttering. No stuttering ANYWHERE ELSE, only in spotify. Super annoying, as I beleive it is a Spotify issue. I am in pro audio, and like I say, everything is fine except Spotify.

Just try moving the Sonos bridge further away from other electronic devices e.g. the router. This solved my problem which was hugely annoying. Martin

Hey all,

 

I have tried every solution in this thread (that I -could- try without jeopardizing my machine), and none of it has worked... but I -have- been able to duplicate the problem outside of Spotify, which I think might help to clue us in to the problem.

 

I have an Inspiron AIO 3275, straight out of the box a few days ago with Windows 10 installed, and immediately started noticing this scratchy-skippy sound issue on Spotify, but couldn't duplicate it on YouTube, so I assumed it was something with Spotify itself.  Now I -can- duplicate it outside of Spotify, but only occasionally.  When I right-click on the sound icon in the lower-right icon tray, and select "Sounds", it takes me to a menu where I can change the sound themes.  If Spotify is working okay, then these sounds work okay.  But when Spotify begins skip-scratching, it happens with these sound snippets as well!

This makes me think that it might be an issue with a driver somewhere... but I've tried updating the sound drivers as mentioned in previous replies, but that hasn't made a difference.  Assuming I followed the directions correctly.

 

Anyway, thought this information might help us all troubleshoot this.  If anyone else can duplicate the skip-scratch outside of Spotify as I have, even better.

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Yup, same card, same issue.

C'mon Spotify

Guys , try to play music using Web spotify . I'm pretty sure it will work well.

It's not driver related if it's the case but Desktop app. For me with exactly the same computer it worked well for years and after an update it started to crackling...

 

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